Svetlana Kotliarova, Ph.D.

Dr. Svetlana Kotliarova is a Program Director in the Neural Environment (NET) Cluster at NINDS. Predominant themes in her grant portfolio are adult brain tumor, gliomagenesis, glioma stem cell biology, vascular/blood-brain barrier interactions, tumor invasion, glioblastoma recurrence, therapy resistance, development of new therapies, including immunotherapies, and preclinical activities. Before joining NINDS, Dr. Kotliarova was a scientific review officer at the Center for Scientific Review (CSR), NIH, where she oversaw peer review of research grant applications in oncological sciences. Before that, Svetlana pursued brain tumor research in the Neuro-Oncology Branch (NOB) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) where she demonstrated a role of GSK3 in gliomas. She was part of a team that developed and characterized patient-derived glioma stem cell model systems. Dr. Kotliarova received her Ph.D. in Health Sciences (Genetics) from the University of Tokyo, Japan, and completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Human Genetics of the University of Tokyo. Then she joined the RIKEN Brain Science Institute where she studied neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Kotliarova’s research is published in Cancer Cell, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Human Molecular Genetics, and other journals.